Abstract
Three adult poor pitch singers were tested for their ability to hear relatively subtle variations from familiar folk melodies. Their vocal abilities were also assessed and then each singer participated individually in weekly training sessions in which they practised pitch-matching and singing a simple song. All three subjects performed at ceiling on the listening comprehension test. After 8 to 12 weeks, two of the subjects were near mastery on vocal matching of a sustained keyboard tune; none showed significant improvement in free singing. The discrepancy between comprehension and production abilities is noted and an error-analysis of the pitch-matching trials is used to shed some light on the learning process.
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